American journalist Edmund Stevens interviewing Premier Zhou Enlai, 1957American journalist Edmund Stevens interviewing Premier Zhou Enlai, 1957
Beijing
Photograph by Phillip Harrington
Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LOOK-Job 57-7090 RR#9
Premier Zhou Enlai claps along with an American youth delegation singing “Ain’t Gonna Study War No More,” 1957Premier Zhou Enlai claps along with an American youth delegation singing “Ain’t Gonna Study War No More,” 1957
Beijing
© Bettmann/CORBIS, BE045871
In 1957, Edmund Stevens and Phillip Harrington became some of the first U.S. journalists to enter China in the eight years since the Communist Party had come to power. Their pictorial report, “Inside Red China,” published in Look magazine, gave American readers a rare glimpse of everyday Chinese life, and revealed that Premier Zhou Enlai was optimistic about his country’s relationship with the United States.